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MISSION LIGHTS Table & floor Lamps Indoor & Outdoor fixtures Kichler's Canyon View Outdoor Lantern (800) 736-0126 www.thebrightspot.com 192 THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 14 & 21, 2004 BR.IEFLY NOTED I The Rule of Four, by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason (Dial,' $24). A Prince- ton student has only twenty-four hours I to complete his senior thesis-hardly the nail-biting stuff of thrillers, except that the thesis in question purports to solve the mystery of an erotic fifteenth- century allegory littered with ciphers and algorithms. (In the wake of the im- mensely popular "The Da Vinci Code," there appears to be no shortage of medi- eval codes waiting to be cracked by in- trepid scholar-detectives.) As the stu- dent races to meet his deadline, mayhem engulfs the campus: a chase through steam tunnels beneath the grassy quads, an inferno at the school's toniest eating club, and nude frolics in the snow (this last not fiction but a real Princeton tradi- tion). The authors, two recent Ivy League grads, keep up a frantic, somewhat ex- hausting pace, but the most riveting ac- tion sequences take place inside the mind, as the hero wrestles with the manuscript. American Desert, by Percival Everett (Hyperion; $24.95). While on his way to commit suicide, Ted Street, an untenured English professor and philandering hus- band, is beheaded in a car accident. Worse, he wakes up at his own funeral, his head clumsily stitched on his neck and his mouth sewn closed. From there, Ted em- barks on a wide-ranging cruise through the American landscape, as he is kid- napped by a cult convinced that he is a devil; picked up by the military to be ex- perimented on as a prototype of the per- fect soldier; and sheltered by another cult, which worships him as a messiah. While the outlandish premise imparts a good deal of comic energ}) Everett's customary sarcastic and intelligent wit is oddly lack- ing. Much of his satire of fanaticism- the charismatic cult leader with a stockpile of weapons, secret government plots- feels worn, and, despite all the talk of res- urrection, the stiff prose never perks up. yet-ingeniously provides contexts for Gould's behavior, situating his hermeti- cism in the dour Anglo world of mid- century Toronto. A keen deflater of myths, Bazzana shows that Gould, often assumed to be asexual or gay; had a num- ber of quasi-girlfriends, though his need for solitude always came first. Similarl although it's true that he sued Steinway; alleging injury from an employee's effu- sive greeting, among friends handshakes were common. Still, those for whom the eccentricities are haIf the fun will find endless delight in the meticulous ac- counts of Gould's diet, hypochondria, and near-suicidal driving. "It's true that I've driven through a number of red lights on occasion," he once said, "but on the other hand, I've stopped at a lot of green ones but never gotten credit for it." Father Joe, by Tony Hendra (Random House; $24.95). Hendra, a British satirist, is perhaps best known as the band man.... ager in the movie "This Is Spinal Tap." His spiritual memoir begins with his affair, at the age of fourteen, with a mar- ried woman. Discovered by her hus- band, a terrified Hendra agrees to ac- company him to a monastery on the Isle of Wight. There he meets Father Joe, whose gigantic ears complement his keen emotional intuition. Hendra is overwhelmed by Father Joe's gentle prodding and by the timelessness of the monastic day; and so begins the great tension in his life-whether to join the abbey or remain in the larger world, a world that eventually includes life on the fringes of the Monty Python crowd. Hendra loses his faith and develops some bad habits-drink, drugs, screen- writing-but he never loses his connec- tion to FatherJoe, and the soul-scraping honesty of his meditation on faith and friendship is a testament to the monk's continuing influence. Wondrous Strange, by Kevin Bazzana (O:ifòrd; $35). Opinion on the eccentric l!!Þ Canadian pianist Glenn Gould is polar- ized between idolatry and detestation. I Bazzanàs portrait-the most balanced .. ,, I) ... I "h\. ...-, , .